


back to you

by reylofics



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Murder House
Genre: Afterlife, American Horror Story References, Angst, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, First Love, Gaslighting, Ghosts, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Manipulative Relationship, Relationship(s), Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-27 12:26:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15685413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reylofics/pseuds/reylofics
Summary: violet invites tate back into her life several years after their deaths.* tw for self-harm, blood and emotional abuse.





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for choosing to read this story! although, i do ask that you PLEASE read this story at your own caution and remember that these are fictional characters. i included trigger warnings in the summary but i will include them again, just in case.
> 
> trigger warnings:  
> \- referenced suicide and self-harm from the past.  
> \- GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF SELF-HARM (i.e. cutting).  
> \- graphic depictions of blood.  
> \- emotional abuse.
> 
> please be safe and DO NOT READ if any of the above trigger warnings apply to you or if you feel uncomfortable reading about self-harm.

More than several years had gone by since the Harmon family had lived and passed violently in the Murder House. No one had successfully moved into the Murder House for more than a week after the Harmons death and, during the time following their passing, the family had finally grown to terms with their deaths. Fortunately, they had also come to accept the fact that they were spending the rest of eternity with each other and the other entities in the Murder House. Mr and Mrs Harmon had quickly reconciled in the years that followed and set apart of their differences for the sake of their family; they didn’t want to spend the rest of their lives fighting uselessly over things that would never be solved. It wasn’t like Violet would be able to kill herself again, but her parents were still worried that any negativity on their part would lead to her shunning them as she had done to Tate Langdon. Of course, they hadn’t done anything quite as extreme as raping someone’s mother such as he had done all those years back but nonetheless, Violet’s parents were careful to not overstep their boundaries and cause their daughter unnecessary heartache. 

She had already gone through enough turmoil in her teenage years until she had been driven to the point of suicide—the Harmons were determined to not let their daughter reach that miserable point in her life again. If that meant hovering over her instead of giving her the personal space that she had always asked for when she was alive, they were more than willing to allow to her to be slightly annoyed with them rather than allowing her to slowly become suicidal behind their backs. Luckily, there wasn’t much that they needed to hover over their daughter for. These days, she wasn’t doing much that required their hovering. 

Violet wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary or even attempting small things that a normal reckless teenager would do. To be completely honest, she wasn’t really doing anything. That wasn’t to say that she was necessarily depressed or down in the dumps, though. To Violet’s parents, she seemed perfectly fine. After all, she was eating, drinking and talking without a single complaint. If anything, the Harmons liked this new side of Violet. 

Maybe that’s why they were so oblivious to what was really going on with their less than perfect teenage daughter. Maybe they didn’t want to admit that the version of the daughter they preferred wasn’t really their daughter’s true self. However, it wasn’t like they were to blame. On the outside, nobody would be able to tell that something was wrong, especially with the thick wall that Violet Harmon had put up to block her emotions out to the rest of the world.

Still, there were two people who could get through that wall of secretive emotions. Tate Langdon was one of them. Violet, of course, was the other person. She didn’t know whether or not it was a good thing that Tate wasn’t here to read the harbored emotions that she refused to admit to herself. It had been a couple years since she had told him to go away but she wasn’t an idiot—Violet knew that the warning only lasted for a while. At some point in time, the words would wear off and the person in question would be free to come back and try again. Yet, Tate hadn’t come back to visit her.

A million questions had gone through her mind when she realized that her old boyfriend was capable of coming back but, for some reason, had decided against it. Sometimes, she felt like he was watching her but she often dismissed the thought, thinking it to just be her subconscious’ wishful thinking. Now, though, she wondered if it was really so crazy that he had been around the house without her direct knowledge. For all she knew, he had chosen to hide himself from her as she had done to him all those years back. She hoped this wasn’t the case but she didn’t know why. It wasn’t that she still loved him or held affection of any kind towards Tate Langdon, mass murderer and rapist with sociopathic tendencies.

At least, this was what she had managed to convince herself. She still didn’t quite know what her reaction to seeing Tate again would be but she assumed that it wouldn’t be a positive reaction. At this point, she wanted answers to the million questions that were on her mind. The only problem was, Violet didn’t know how to get his attention. She contemplated it for a little while and figured that saying his name might do the trick, though. After all, the last time she had spoken his name was when he had been about to kill an innocent boy for her (a grave situation for all parties involved). The action had ignited a mix of confused emotions within Violet Harmon but she hadn’t been able to process them fully—he had left that same night and, until the present day, left her entirely alone. It was possible that saying his name for the first time in many years would bring him back. At the very least, he would be able to hear her cries for him and realize that she hadn’t forgotten about him. Tate wouldn’t be able to ignore her, either, what with them living in the same house. The only tricky part for Violet would be hiding this from her parents. She hoped it wouldn’t be too much of an issue; they were finally starting to leave her alone more often.

“Tate.”

The words ended up coming out like a pitiful whisper. Tate’s name died on her lips. It remained no more than the ghost of his last touch on her lips. His name haunted her but sparked excitement within her insides at the same time, like a broken firework sizzling around in her heart. When she finished saying his name, she was left unsure—unsure about the choice she had made to say his name to begin with. Immediately after, she woefully regretted the risky choice, not sure if she would be able to handle the emotions that might come from seeing Tate Langdon again. All that aside, she was undeniably nervously excited to see him again if he showed up.

Anxiously, Violet paced around her room, biting on her clean nails while she did so. Every now and then, she would also pick at the hem of her jeans and the sleeve of her long sleeve t-shirt in anticipation. She also messed around with her hair, playing around with different hairstyles that she would never put together. All this seemed to happen over the span of hours and hours but truthfully, Violet was only waiting for about a minute. As a ghost, though, time seemed to slowly pass by for her when she wanted it to move quickly. She couldn’t keep track of time, anymore. Violet didn’t even notice when her ex had entered the room, too preoccupied with her own thoughts and belongings. Soon enough, he politely interrupted her thoughts. 

“Vi?”

The nickname came out of habit. Violet flinched when she heard the name, now aware of her current surroundings. She quickly turned to her doorway to see Tate, mirroring her own anxiety-filled actions in his own way. He was nervous, too. 

Meanwhile, the air was thick and heavy. Neither of them spoke a single word nor did they mouth a single thing. It was weighed down by the silence of their unspoken questions and apologies. Violet had millions of questions that she wanted to ask but she struggled to force them out of her mouth. Looking at Tate was overwhelming and clearly more than she had anticipated that she would be able to handle. Again, she fiddled nervously with herself in an attempt to calm her nerves properly enough to form a question. It took a few seconds of awkward silence, but she was finally ready to start interrogating her ex boyfriend for the reasons that she had first intended to bring him here for. She had already gotten a couple of answers to the questions she had desperately been contemplating over the years but a couple questions still lingered in the back of her mind. 

Instead, her mouth had other thoughts. It betrayed her in the worst way possible.

“Tate.”

She hadn’t meant to say his name. Violet didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that she had wanted him here for selfish reasons (not that she wanted him here selfishly, but it might appear that way to him). Unfortunately for her, the hidden emotions in her gave way and appeared slightly in her wavering voice. Tate merely glanced at her. His expression was completely unreadable. It was almost like he was in shock from seeing her after all this time and hadn’t quite processed what their separation had meant. In a timid voice, Tate repeated Violet’s nickname back to her in a sort of trance. Her old flames gaze was fixated heavily on her face, admiring every dip and curve of the features on her face. Now she was at a loss for words, embarrassed by the way Tate was eyeing her. She opened her out to speak but no words came out. Tate, on the other hand, was more than happy to revive the silent conversation.

“How are you doing, V?” He smiled enchantingly at her with that smile of his that she knew was full of broken sadness, heartbreak and betrayal. 

Violet knew he wasn’t doing it on purpose, yet she still felt a twinge of empathy for him even though she had long ago convinced herself that he wasn’t the victim. She wanted to punch herself for feeling an ounce of regret towards the boy who had raped her mom; then again, Violet knew another side to Tate that everyone else refused to acknowledge. Tate Langdon wasn’t just a convicted felon. To her, he was more than that. He was kind, sweet, gentle and even humble at times. As much as Violet wanted to hate him, she couldn’t. But he had still raped her mother and that was why she could barely look him in the face without feeling extremely conflicted. If she forgave him, she felt like she was betraying her mom. If she didn’t forgive him, she was betraying herself. The two opposite sides of Violet’s aggressive thoughts were violently tugging at the rope in her mind in a competition to see which side she would choose. She lingered between both sides cautiously before stepping forward, still undecided. All at once, the snarky, nasty side of her came out to play. It was like a scene straight out of a stereotypical high school movie.

“I’m not doing all too well, Tate, considering you raped my mother,” Violet scoffed.

He took a step backwards, clearly hurt by the truth that he didn’t want to face. But Violet didn’t care. She continued to push his buttons, egging him on to snap and lash out at her like she wanted him to so that she could take the easy way out and banish him from her life forever. 

“And you hurt me. First you killed a bunch of innocent kids in high school because you’re some...sick psycho. But that wasn’t enough for you, was it? So you decided to come here and torture everyone in this house like it’s some sort of kink for you. Including my family. Including me. I loved you, Tate.” 

Violet was flailing her arms around wildly in sorrowful panic. She had lost track of what she had been saying. As she neared towards the end of her speech, the teenager in front of Tate began to break down right before his eyes, crumbling and tearing apart. She was still standing, though. His ex girlfriend was crying now while she spoke her truth. It was odd, the way her cries mimicked Tate’s. He had also started crying and choking in between sobs while she ended her outburst at him. Hearing that she had loved him had been his breaking point. The fact of the matter was: Tate Langdon was still in love with Violet Harmon. It hurt him greatly to know that she was no longer in love with him or even infatuated. Knowing this, he sensed that she had called him here for a definitive closure. While he was wary of this idea, he was willing to do whatever it took to make sure that she was happy, even if that meant her happiness wasn’t with him. He loved her and wanted to keep her happy at all costs.

“V...Violet,” Tate corrected himself. He noticed the way she flinched when he called her by the first letter of her name, an old nickname. “I’m sorry.”

His voice continued to break down at the end. It gave room for his emotions to break through and spill from the corners of his eyes. Violet noticed the sudden downpour of emotion and looked away ashamedly. 

She hated this. She hated what she was doing to herself and what she was doing to him. More than anything, she wanted to hug him tight and whisper that everything that was okay. That couldn’t happen though. For that to happen, everything would have to go back to the way it was before—before the rape, the dying, the deaths, Halloween, and Murder House. Nothing would ever be okay again. The only thing that was possible to do at this point was to move forward, but even that idea seemed far-fetched to Violet. She couldn’t even stomach the thought of touching him, let alone looking at him. Moving forward was more than a few steps ahead of where she was at right now.

“I don’t give a shit if you’re sorry, you dumbass. You raped my mother. You hurt me.”

Now she was beginning to sound like a broken record. Violet was repeating the same things with different words over and over again like she was hoping they would have the same effect every time she lashed out at Tate with them. For some reason, it worked. He was a dramatic blubbering mess. Tate wasn’t even paying attention to Violet anymore. She had ripped and torn him apart with her words and seeing the way he reacted was her apparent reward for wanting to hurt him more than he had hurt her family. His sentences weren’t the slightest bit coherent. They were a garbled mess, matching the way his hands ran shakily through his blonde hair. He was tugging at the ends of his hair, almost hard enough to pull it out. It was painful to see the boy in front of her physically breaking down.

Plus, Violet could make out that he was reprimanding himself more harshly than she had ever intended to punish him. He was calling himself ugly names, mumbling that he wasn’t worthy enough of staying in the house with her in life or death. The girl across from him was anticipating his next move anxiously. As a ghost, he couldn’t kill himself but he could still injure himself seriously. 

She briefly scanned the room in its entirety to make sure that there wasn’t anything he could hurt himself with and was sure that there was nothing there. That is, until he pulled the blade from the corner of the mattress on her bed. Truth be told, Violet had forgotten about the secret blade that she stashed under her mattress to use in cases of extreme distress. She had even forgotten telling Tate about the secret weapon. At the time, she would’ve never thought that he would use her own weapons against her.

There was a first for everything. Tate was clutching the blade tightly in his own hand, tight enough to draw the blood that was healing and splitting apart with every gentle squeeze of his hand. It wasn’t like he could do much harm to himself with the blade since he was already dead, but he could still feel the pain that the blade inflicted upon first contact to his skin. He was slicing himself apart like a madman on his palm. If he had been alive, it would’ve been a bloody mess and he probably would’ve already chopped his hand clean off with the amount of pressure he was holding on the blade. When he felt that he had punished himself enough, the blonde boy finally opened his closed, battered fist and brought the shiny weapon up to his face. His curls fell down the front of his face and he angrily blew them back with the hot air of his breath. He was feeling more dead than ever.

With a single swipe of his hand, Tate sliced a large gash on his left cheek. He winced at both the cool air hitting the open wound and the pain of the wound itself. The stream of blood following was slow but steady. Shaky blood ran down the side of his face, bloodily clogging up his porcelain skin. The action done by him to himself was completely silent. Neither he nor Violet said anything during the action, though he could hear her quiet gasps as he sliced himself in different areas of his body over and over again. Not that it was doing much damage, anyways. 

He was fiercely driving the blade over his arms and face to create a visibly disturbing damage but to no avail. The cut on his cheek had already healed up, leaving a fresh scar and dried red blood with no wound to match it with. His salty tears mixed with the dried blood, leaving his face looking like he had cried blood. It was like the crying girls he had seen in the school on that fateful day with their mascara running tearfully down their face before he shot them all in the back—except his face was now a more bloody mess.

“Tate,” choked out Violet. As soon as Tate had grabbed the blade, she had wanted to stop him but she felt frozen in place. Besides, it wasn’t like she would be able to stop him. He had always been physically stronger than her. If he was capable of killing people, he was more than capable of shoving someone away who was trying to stop him from killing himself.

Tate turned to face Violet with the scars on his body like he was just noticing her presence in the room. He felt dazed and confused, almost unsure of what he had just done. Tate locked eyes with his ex girlfriend in confusion. Her face was run down with wet tears, her eyes locked in on his trembling hands. Slowly, he looked down at the blade in his hand. It was bloody with the remains of his sliced skin, the only clue left behind to show that the blood on his body was recently caused by solely himself. His eyes cluelessly wandered over the sharp edges of the blade while he pondered his previous actions. He paid Violet no attention while doing this, he merely just mused over his spontaneous self harm quietly. Violet was left feeling very confused.

Then he snapped back to reality. Tate Langdon threw the blade back down to the floor in a fit of anger. Violet tried hard not to flinch when she heard the object clang against the floor but she struggled to hide her discomfort. Her fingers subconsciously scratched her jagged scars all along the length of her arms. The white lines of her skin ashamed her and it was almost as hard to touch and look at her scars as it was to forgive her old boyfriend. The only difference was that the scars on her arms were self inflicted while the scars that Tate had left on her heart were mercilessly stabbed into her by him. She wanted to feel pity for him, to feel bad that for the situation that had just occurred but she felt nothing. Violet Harmon felt empty. All because of him.

In the meantime, Tate was set on trying to make himself seem like the victim. His nose scrunched up the way it always did when he was trying to pin the blame on someone else and he was stammering uncontrollably. The wet circles at the brim of his eyes were also a common occurrence when Tate wanted to feel like the victim and spin the story around to make the actual victim feel like the perpetrator. Violet knew his behavior all too well but it was still hard to remind herself of what he had done. When he was standing in front of her, all laid open and bare like this, Violet ceased to see the monster who had done all the horrific actions that caused her to cut ties with him.

“You-You made me do this. You,” accused the blonde boy. His brows furrowed at the girl across from him sadly, twisted up with a pinch of anger. He touched the scar on his cheek, pulling his fingers away to show her the blood stains that had piled up on his hands. As expected, his fingers shook heavily while he did so.

The Harmons daughter sighed. She gave him a pitiful smile in return to his accusation. Her mind was occupied with thousands of different contradictory thoughts that each refuted the other one. Right now, Violet Harmon was struggling not to give in. What he wanted was for her to give up and she wasn’t willing to let that happen. Not this time. When she had learned of her suicide, she had given up and allowed him to manipulate her. He had manipulated her almost enough that she probably would’ve brushed aside the rape of her mother, had she allowed him to tell her of her suicide earlier than he had. Afterwards, when she had told him to go away, she was left feeling broken and helpless. With him gone, there was no one to help her process her emotions about her death. Now she wasn’t sure of what she wanted.

At the moment, Tate was only making things worse. He was using his almost always foolproof tactics to make Violet feel guilty and the worst part was that it was starting to work. The way that he stuck out his lip and looked at her sadly made her feel guilty of an action that she hadn’t even committed. She had opened her mouth to tell him off but was now starting to contemplate her decision to do so. Violet saw a glimmer of the boy she had loved in the Tate standing in front of her and momentarily paused. Was it worth it to throw away her hesitations for the chance of finding love again with Tate Langdon and resuming their relationship like everything back was back to normal? She considered it, stopping herself and trying to rid herself of these questions until remembering that it had been Tate who, not so long ago, told her that normal was weird. Maybe it was a good thing that she wasn’t letting her heart lead the way, this time. At least, that was the case for right now.

Violet started, “I didn’t make you do anything, Tate.” Her voice was calm, cool and collected. “You did this to yourself.”

He looked at her, confused yet again. The psychotic boy looked like he hadn’t even considered the possibility that he might be the one to blame. All this time, he had been trying to pin the blame on someone other than himself that he had neglected to see that the only one to blame was himself. But no. Tate quickly shook himself out of this state of mind and reverted back to his original state of thinking: Violet was to blame. It was all her fault and her fault alone. Everything that he done selfishly or negatively was all due to her. Even the things he had done before he had even met her were somehow connected to her. It was deluded but to Tate, he had never seen the world anymore clearly than he was seeing it now.

“Me?” his voice squeaked as it grew higher. His voice was childish, almost boyish. It reminded Violet of the Tate that she fell in love with. He was playing the role of the victim and once again, she was slowly but surely falling in love with the mask he had put on.

Her voice was beginning to lose its harshness and her tone was beginning to soften. “I’m sorry, Tate. I didn’t mean it like that. I know this isn’t intentional on your part.” She sighed, indicating that she was beginning to relinquish control over her mind. In the same way, she was handing over her heart to a monster.

Tate smiled but he was quick to hide before she could catch it. When she met his eyes again, all she saw was a whimpering lost boy. It was pitiful, really. Violet felt sad for Tate, staring at him in his drunken state of sadness. As far as she could tell, he was hurting over her and she was the only one who could fix it. Though she was still wary of trusting him, Violet was sure that he would be able to regain her trust if she was able to regain his—after all, she wasn’t the only one whose trust had been broken. Though, to be fair, her trust had been broken by a much larger extent. Nonetheless, she was determined to fix things between them.


	2. Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as i’ve already stated at the beginning, it is HIGHLY recommended that you not read this story if you are uncomfortable with reading or are triggered by graphic depictions of self-harm, emotional abuse and/or blood. please stay safe and refrain from reading if any of the above applies to you, as this chapter might be especially upsetting. thank you.

Tate was staring up at Violet like a scared little boy. His eyes pierced into hers harshly. She wanted to turn away but she couldn’t. It felt like a trap that she didn’t know she had fallen into. 

Her eyes locked in with Tate’s in a sort of trance, their eyes following each other’s every move. The only time she broke away from their vigorous eye contact was to spy the bloody blade sitting merely inches away from Tate’s outstretched hand. He followed her gaze almost immediately after and thought that maybe she did care about him, after all. He thought that maybe she would care if he sliced himself bloody to death (again). Then again, Tate remembered all those years that had gone by where he knew that Violet was insistent on never talking to him again. Memories came flooding back into his brain that took away his pity for Violet Harmon: Violet yelling at him to go away, Violet kissing him after he had been about to kill a boy for her, only to tell him goodbye for what seemed forever and hundreds of other heartbroken memories like those that had bothered him for years. 

Violet Harmon didn’t care about him. She never had. Now Tate was planning to hurt her just as badly as she had hurt him. He wanted to watch her flinch and scream at the psychotic things he did, only to end up back in his arms out of concern for what he might do next. He wanted her to fall in love with him all over again and then he wanted to break her heart like she had broken his.

He grabbed the blade again. Violet opened her mouth to scream at him or say something (Tate couldn’t really tell). No words came out. Instead, a strangled cry rose from the back of her throat and resulted in what sounded like she was choking on air. Tate held her gaze miserably while repeatedly drawing the blade over his skin. His gaze was so intense that she felt like she couldn’t look away. He didn’t know why it made her so uncomfortable, though. After all, she had done the same thing countless times before and he had watched her silently from behind the bathroom door. Maybe she just didn’t like it when he did it to himself. What a hypocrite.

The blonde boy continued to slice himself to pieces all over his body and all Violet could do was stare. She was horrified to watch the steady stream of blood that came out of his open wounds. It trickled our rapidly, one stream after another. His face was extremely bloody, along with the rest of his body that was marked with healed scars. She noticed how he flinched with every swipe of the blade. It was a small flinch but still noticeable to her. Violet could see that he was intentional on creating maximum damage to himself but was unable to decipher whether or not he was trying to be manipulative in doing so. All the while, she just stood there like a mannequin frozen in place, watching the freak show unfold in front of her eyes.

Tate, on the other hand, was mesmerized by the red painting his white skin. He was like an artist. Every stroke of the blade led to yet another bloody masterpiece. Of course, he could have done without the pain that the tiny cuts sprung upon him but it was all worth it to see his masterpiece causing Violet a mix of emotions that she hadn’t been ready to unveil until now. He was proud of the emotions that his artwork was evoking from his audience.

His ex girlfriend could taste the blood on her lips. She recognized the scent all too well from when she had selfishly swung the blade cleanly across her skin with the razor sharp blades that her dad used to shave. When she had been alive, the blood barely bothered her. Now, she could barely stomach it when she was watching someone else self harm. The vile taste of the bloody liquid covering Tate’s skin rose up into the back of her throat, making her throw up a little in her mouth. She made a retching noise that bothered Tate, since she seemed to be more focused on trying not to puke than she was on the pain he was causing himself. He tried to cut himself more, but it only ended up with more determination on her end not to vomit on the floor with bloody distaste.

So he stopped cutting. Again, he flung the blade across the room in a fit of anger near Violet’s feet. She was sobbing violently. Her body was trembling greatly upon seeing Tate’s changed expression, afraid of what he was going to do next. Her parents were too busy taking care of her baby brother to come protect her if she even tried to successfully call for them. Violet was still in the trap, willing to do whatever Tate told her to do. At this point, she knew she was trapped but didn’t know how to get out. She hated herself for bringing him here.

“Cut yourself,” he ordered. Tate nodded his head calmly to the blade lying in front of her feet. He was teasing her, taunting her with his words. “You deserve it. Look at what you did to me.”

She looked away.

“Look at what you did to me!” came out the monstrous roar in response. His voice was laced thick with anger.

Slowly, she turned to face him fully with a foggy perspective. Her tears were clouding her vision up but she was still able to see the thousands of scars lined up on his body, supported by the trails of blood hiking behind them. His mutilated skin horrified her beyond a greater extent than she could ever describe. He looked like the psychopaths she saw being brought to justice on television. Except Tate Langdon would never be brought to justice. He was already dead.

His face was ghostly pale. In comparison, the red specks of blood on his cheeks made him look even more dangerous and psychotic. Even more so, Tate’s blue veins popped out of his neck in a twisted fashion—the way that they always did when he was angry. Violet was scared of him but she still couldn’t move. It was the worst kind of scared, the kind where she was so scared that she would kiss him and then kill herself if he asked her to like Romeo and Juliet. She hated the power he held over her and she hated the way he was squeezing the life out of her without even touching her. He knew what he was doing.

“Cut yourself!” screamed Tate again, blood and spit foaming from the edges of his dry lips.

Across the room, Violet was holding in her breath in small gasps, her lungs entirely deflated by the crushing weight of her tears. She was already past the point of breaking down. She was broken. Everything seemed out of place and nothing seemed to fit together. In that moment, it felt like a maze with no end to it. Violet didn’t want to pick up the blade and place it on her skin but she was stuck in a mode that she just couldn’t seem to shake off. No matter what, she felt forced to do what Tate was telling her and she couldn’t help but pick up the fallen blade. She was a slave to his words.

“Do it,” hissed Tate. “I want to see you suffer just as much as you made me fucking suffer.” His voice broke into a whisper, barely audible as his words started to fade into a insane cry. “You hurt me, V. You fucking hurt me.”

Tate slowly started to rock himself back and forth on the floor, his hands wrapped tightly around his knees. His eyes weren’t even focused on her anymore. They were glassy, staring intently at the room that was beginning to move and spin in circles around him. The voices in his head started to grow louder and louder and he wanted to strike them dead. They were all telling him what a stupid excuse for a person he was. At least, they were telling him that that’s what Violet thought of him: A sorry excuse for a teenage boy.

“Shut up!” he yelled out of nowhere, his hands tangled through his blonde hair. 

He was grasping at the air flowing his curls, twitching while he did so. Violet choked out a sob, starting to repeatedly draw lines over her skin with the blade while she watched her first love fall apart. Tate was clinically insane but there was nothing she could do to stop him. He was a mess on the ground, no longer paying a single speck of attention to the girl across the room; yet, for some reason, Violet couldn’t stop cutting herself. It was almost like a distraction, the pain putting her at ease and taking her mind away from the chaotic thoughts that were currently raging through her brain. 

Soon enough, she wasn’t cutting herself for him anymore. She was doing it all selfishly for herself. Violet had forgotten how good it felt to take the pain of her mind away and divert the pain elsewhere; although, she barely felt the pain anymore. After so many years of switching the blade across her skin, Violet had grown immune to the harsh sting it pierced into her skin. Her eyes rolled back into her head in a devilish fashion and she closed her eyes while she continued to draw out the curtains of blood that were slowly sinking into red pools around her body. In doing so, she was completely silent. The lines on her arm that were quickly healing into faded scars were now being covered by the ample amount of blood that was drenching her arms. When she finally opened her brown eyes to look at what she had done, Violet began to cry again.

She wasn’t like Tate. Violet still had feelings. It wasn’t like Tate, who could flick a switch and become an entirely new sociopathic person that he had no control over. Violet was different. Still, why did it feel like they were almost the same person? If they weren’t the same person, why had she cut herself only to break down afterwards just like him?

Violet didn’t want to be like Tate. She didn’t. She really didn’t. As much as she told herself this, though, some other part of her brain was nagging her and telling her that this wasn’t the case. 

‘You are like him,’ it told her. ‘You’re the same person.’

The broken girl was too drained of energy to argue with the irrational part of herself. That part of herself was clearly wrong but she still couldn’t fight the feeling. It was like a gravitational pull and the rational part of Violet was floating dangerously close to the irrational side of her. She wanted to fight it, to be stronger than that, but Violet couldn’t bring herself to do it. The girl across from Tate Langdon was crying heavily now, creating a flood of tears in her old room. Her tears splashed weakly against the wood, matching Tate’s crimson red blood stains on her carpet.

Violet couldn’t help it. Slowly, she started to walk over to the other boy sitting in the room and plopped herself down beside him. The shorter girl rubbed Tate’s back reassuringly and laid her head on his bloodied shoulder. Her eyes began to rest pitifully on his body until she began to forget. Violet wasn’t quite sure of what she was forgetting but she was aware of the fact that whatever she was forgetting was putting her at ease. 

She didn’t know what she was doing or why she was doing it but all she knew was that she didn’t care anymore. She didn’t care if what she was doing was rational or not. Violet Harmon just liked being here, peaceful, by Tate Langdon’s side.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading and feel free to leave any comments, questions and/or concerns! i’ll do my best to reply to each and every single one of you.


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